Laying the Groundwork: Taking Stock of Advertised Foods

Author: National Gardening Association Staff

Bright, busy cereal boxes on low shelves promise plastic movie heroes. Friendly, familiar TV characters invite youngsters to “supersize.” Food advertising is hardly new, but these days, peddling foods to kids is a $13 billion a year business! No surprise: Few of the 11,000 food ads youngsters see each year pitch healthful fare. In fact, 80 percent of all food ads hype sugary cereals and soft drinks, fatty fast food, or salty snacks. Only two percent feature fruits, vegetables, grains, or beans. Can you recall when you last saw an ad for broccoli?*

It’s not just cute cartoons that vie for youngsters’ attention. A sophisticated blend of marketing – themes of fun and fantasy, movie and video game tie-ins, kids’ clubs, and more – entice them to opt for foods poor in nutrition. But we think that students can figure out the “sell” and, with support, become advertising-savvy consumers. This means asking important questions about what they read, see, and hear. What tricks do marketers use to grab my attention? How do they want me to feel about the food? Does the scene on the box front fit the nutritional reality?

As students dig in to food ads and packages, and learn to keep their critical eyes peeled, they can begin to evaluate how the pitch affects their nutritional choices. Once they do this – and then practice promoting their own garden fare or nourishing edibles – they will be more likely to opt for healthful food choices.

Overview

Pitching Foods to Kids: Some Statistics

• A 2005 study at the University of Illinois concluded that the more TV children watch, the more confused they are about which foods are healthy and nutritional. Other researchers found that the more TV kids watch, the fewer fruits and vegetables they eat.

• The Center for Science in the Public Interested found in its review of Saturday morning programming that out of 54 Kellogg commercials, 98% were for nutritionally poor food resources.

• Soft-drink marketers in Europe have pledged to stop marketing to children under 12 and to limit soft-drink sales in schools.

Students ponder food ads they’ve encountered. As they do, they begin to consider which types of edibles are marketed most frequently. This prepares them for understanding that foods low in nutritional value are marketed to youngsters more frequently than healthful foods are.

Work as a class or in small groups. Invite students to recall food advertisements they’ve seen or heard. (You can limit this to ads targeting children.) Make a list of the products on the board or chart paper; students can add a short description to recall each ad (e.g., Macdonald’s: the skateboard one). Have them put a star by the ads they like best and explain what they like about them.

Challenge the class to group the products into categories as they see fit. (They can use a color or symbol to indicate categories.) For instance, they might identify breakfast foods, drinks, and so on.

As the class reviews the list, ask, Which of your categories had the most ads? The fewest ads? How would you explain those differences? (If appropriate, point out how few ads for fruits and vegetables showed up on the list. Ask, How often do they turn up in the media at all (e.g., people eating broccoli on TV)?

Suggest trying another grouping that takes nutritional value into account. For instance, students might group food ads according to where the food’s main ingredients fit on the food pyramid, how healthful students think they are, or how much sugar or fat they contain (e.g., low, medium high).

As students review their findings, ask, What general statements can you make about food advertising? About food ads and health or nutrition?

Do you think your food choices are influenced by advertisers? If so, how? Otherwise, why not?

Invite students to discover some of the strategies food companies and advertisers use to persuade us to choose their food fare first. Check out the activity Persuasion: It’s All in the Packaging.

Digging Deeper

Food Ads in School? Taking a Stand
Challenge students to look for evidence of food advertisements in the school. (They might note cafeteria posters, vending machines, sports billboards, educational materials or contests, and so on.) Discuss the types of foods being advertised. Pose this question: Should food advertisements be allowed in school? Ask students to go to one side of the room if they agree, to the other side if they disagree, and in the middle if they have mixed opinions or are unsure. Launch a discussion by asking volunteers to explain why they placed themselves where they did.

Food Ad Pyramid
Once your class has explored the five food groups and the new Food Guide Pyramid, have them make a list of all the food advertisements they see in a day. Remind them to look in magazines, television, movies (including “product” placement), billboards, flyers, and so on. Make a large blank drawing of the food pyramid. Have students post words, drawings, or cut out pictures of items (not brands) from their lists near appropriate sections of the pyramid. What conclusions can they draw about food advertising?

Musing on Magazine Ads

Ask each student to bring in a magazine from home. Bring in some extras so you have a variety of categories and audiences represented.

Challenge small groups to sort the magazines into general categories (e.g., sports, fitness, kids). Write the categories on the board. Divide each one into 2 columns labeled as follows: # ads for more healthful foods and # of ads for less healthful foods. Explain that each group must decide what those terms mean to them.

Randomly pass out several magazines to each group. Explain that they must first decide in which category to put each magazine. As they then look at food ads in each one, they must decide in which of the two columns to assign each ad. They can save ads they’re unsure of to discuss later.

Once the chart is complete, ask, How did you decide which foods were more healthful and which foods were less healthful? What do you notice about the magazine categories and types of ads they feature? How would you explain that?